After spending thirty years of my life hiding my association with the Enclave [open]

[taediosum]

Who: Arcade (taediosum) & OPEN
What: Arts & crafts (or some long overdue vehicle maintenance)
When: Some activity during the morning stop & early evening 
Where: His truck
Warnings: TBD but nothing likely

Note: I have an opt-in here for Arcade's vital sense ability, please leave a comment if it's something you're interested in coming up here or in future threads! Otherwise, no worries, it just won't work on/around them.



[ Ordinarily, Arcade only looks for salvage of practical things, at the intermittent garage stop. He doesn't know much about vehicle maintenance beyond the basics, and even that's mostly still only in theory. (Luckily, he somehow hasn't had to field a flat tire or an overheating engine, yet.) But he knows plenty about surviving in a post-apocalyptic waste with little to live on, from place to place. He also knows too much about personally handling triage, in those same circumstances. 

So it's really no wonder it's taken him this long to start picking up things that aren't necessarily needed but still... Well, probably should have been considered, at least, a little sooner. (But he's had a whole host of other things to worry about, these past few months, unsurprisingly.)

He's already started a small collection of patchwork canvas, wherever he can find it. It's going to take a while to actually completely enclose the back of the truck, again, so that it can serve as somewhat more suitable shelter - so he'll be around crudely stitching together the various pieces of cover that he's managed to collect, thus far, both in the early morning hours and at night. He's not quite as good at sewing as he is at suturing, and it's kind of obvious.

Or maybe he's trying to flag someone down to lend a hand with actually fitting his makeshift tarp over the top of the truck's trailer— ] Hey, do you have a minute? I could use some help, here.

[ One particular evening, he can also be found with a small collection of old paint cans, painstakingly hunted down in the latest set of ruins. He's set up alongside the truck's cab, eyeing the faded spray paint stenciled logo on the door in front of him - before unceremoniously dashing a swath of old beige paint over it.

Maybe it's because he hasn't made a plan until now to actually get rid of it (despite all the trouble it's already caused), but covering it up feels better than expected. ]

Comments

[taediosum]

It's bad enough. I can tell just from— [ Arcade falters for a half-second, then thinks better of something before he amends, ] ...Looking at you.

[ Because that's all he's doing, definitely. Just. Noticing that awkward stance and having some kind of normal, medically knowledgeable insight. Sure.

That buzzing sound doesn't exactly inspire confidence, either. But one thing at a time. ]

You don't have to let me have a look at it, but I'd appreciate it if you did.

[serialmurderbot]

[Did it catch that hesitation? Yeah, but that doesn't mean it can process why. Arcade and the rest of the humans here don't usually have the kind of scanning capabilities to know that it got damaged, but humans who know it well have caught it off-guard before by reading something in its posture or expression that it didn't know was there.

... Does Arcade know it well? Weird thought. Time to ignore that.]

I already told you it looks worse than it is.

[But that's sign enough that it's capitulating. The reasons for the warnings become clear the moment it lifts the arm it's been hiding, because even with the sleeve pulled over its forearm, its hand and fingers are torn up with what has to be bite marks. The wounds are strangely bloodless, barely scabbed over and exposing not muscle and bone but metal strutwork at the core. At least some of the jagged bite marks carry up its wrist under the sleeve.]

[taediosum]

Worse is a pretty broad spectrum, when we haven't even established where bad should fall, yet.

[ Or good, or even just okay, for that matter. He really doesn't want to risk irritating it into taking off without at least giving him a chance to assess the damage he can, unfortunately, taste radiating off of it, though. So he leaves the petty needling there, stepping forward to examine its offered arm, instead.

Not that it takes him long to measure the extensive damage and find it sufficiently alarming. Arcade glances between its arm and face, plainly horrified as he grimaces. He supposes, on some level, he must've known it was more metal than bone under there (how else would it have guns in its arms? honestly), but the bloodless, barely scabbed-over look of the wounds is still jarring, awful. ]

...Yeah. This is bad. It doesn't even look like it's begun to heal.

[serialmurderbot]

The veins sealed and I barely lost any body mass.

[... Yeah so it's perspective on 'worse' is maybe different than most people's. It almost jerks the arm away but stops, holding stiff and not looking either at the injuries or at Arcade's face when he starts trading incredulous glances between the two.

And here it has to admit;]

I don't know how fast it will repair without a medsystem.

[taediosum]

This is barely losing anything, to you?

[ It looks massacred, that arm, and Arcade isn't letting up on the insistence that it is, actually, as bad as it looks. There's just no way it can't be. And he knows that it hurts.

But that's not a productive avenue worth pursuing. ]

What do you need? We've got plenty of medicine and even some extra equipment, from that hospital. Maybe I can put something together, to help fix this.

[serialmurderbot]

[It wouldn't hurt if only SecUnit could get turning down its pain sensors to work the way that's supposed to, but instead, yeah, it kind of sucks. It's not going to say that, though. Nor is it going to talk about the time it lost basically all the organic material on its back. If this is how Arcade reacts to a chewed arm it doesn't want to see what colors his face turns at that one.

Mostly, though, it's because it's looking entirely blank about being asked what it needs. The arm drops a few centimeters.]

You can't just patch it?

[taediosum]

I could, but that wouldn't necessarily help it heal.

[ And covering it up and hoping for the best seems like what SecUnit's already trying out. To very debatable success. ]

Admittedly, I'm not used to dealing with anyone as... Augmented as you are. But even if all we can do is stitch and bandage this, it still needs to be treated properly. You don't want to lose function in this arm, I assume?

[serialmurderbot]

Fine, then do that.

[The technical term for what SecUnit's already trying out is 'ignoring the problem and hoping it won't have to deal with the consequences.' Success rate is low so far, for some reason.

But it doesn't want to lose function in the arm, and even though it suspects that it won't lose functioning, it doesn't actually know if injuries to its organic parts can... go bad, like they do for humans. It's never actually gone that long without access to a cubicle or a medsystem, which. Weird thought.]

Where do we go to sterilize things?

[It's pretty sure that's what needs to happen, right?]

[taediosum]

The infirmary.

[ While he could do an adequate rush job of it, right here, Arcade isn't going to admit that so long as SecUnit is willing to visit the actual medical bay and sit still long enough for proper treatment. (Maybe Arcade is being overly optimistic, on that last point, but he's going to roll with it until he's proven wrong.)

Gesturing toward the Convoy, he steps away from the truck and starts to make his way down the line. ]

Can you tell me what - did that to you?

[serialmurderbot]

I had to teach an asshole not to eat people.

[It flexes the hand, looking dispassionately down at the tooth marks, then shoves the injured hand back into the pocket of its jacket. It stops to scan Arcade's truck to make sure there's nothing left unsecured, but finding no particular stalling tactic, it follows Arcade along.

It clearly doesn't like the idea, but having been convinced that it's necessary it'll go through with it with no danger of it trying to slip off on the way.

It pauses, then adds, because surely this would be the next question;]

No, he isn't dead.

[taediosum]

[ That wasn't what he was going to ask, but it seems pertinent to know, anyway. ]

Great. Just how many people are we going to have to worry about trying to eat each other, around here?

[ That's not a real question, muttered half under his breath, as he tries to run back a mental inventory of all of the supposed disinfectants and antibiotics they might have found, in the hospital. (Everything from there is dicey, as far as Arcade is concerned. It wasn't exactly the most promising spot to salvage, even if that didn't stop him from hoping.) ]

How long has it been, since you were bitten? Did you wash any of the wounds, initially?

[serialmurderbot]

One less, if he doesn't want to get torn apart.

[It means that. It says so in a very calm way, even - it's not making a threat to a nonexistent third party, but very certain about what it will do to fix the problem.

And maybe that's just a bit monstrous of it, too - maybe it's just that much more inhuman seeming, for saying it. So much for playing safe for the humans, Murderbot.

It still hasn't stumbled its way back into its usual discomfort as it answers the question, so it sounds like it's reporting on vehicle maintenance, not a part of its own body that still hurts, actually.]

A few days. I cleaned off the dirt but there's no decontam.

[taediosum]

[ Maybe Arcade's barometer for monstrous behavior is just a little broken (it is), because his response to that is the equivalent of an internalized shrug (Fair enough), and an only passingly awkward chuckle. ]

Remind me not to get on your bad side.

[ That's as far as the pleasantries last, though. He has to fight back a wave of horrified incredulity at that answer, because dirt is the least of all potential concerns, when someone is responsible for those bites rather than something. ]

A few days— [ He's within a hair's breadth of shouting, barely managing to bite it back at the last second, because he's pretty sure SecUnit isn't going to come along quietly for some very necessary medical care if he starts shouting at it. Or lecturing it. No matter how very justifiable that would feel. ]

Okay. [ Deep breath. Try not to slam the door to the infirmary open too violently. ] At least you washed it. ...Right? You didn't just... wipe the dirt off?

[serialmurderbot]

Yes. I know how a shower works. [It sounds equal parts offended and confused by that reaction, turning a sidelong glance towards Arcade as they get into the infirmary. It's first aid modules are shitty but they're not that bad, okay.

Mostly it's just confused (Okay, and a little bit defensively annoyed). It's not like Arcade didn't get a glimpse of just how non-human its internal composition is. Does he think the injuries are going to get infected?

... Can they get infected? Maybe it should have thought of that earlier. It just figured with no medsystem the Convoy wasn't going to be equipped for fixing it And if there was some sort of venom something probably would have happened by now.]

[taediosum]

[ Well thank goodness for that, Arcade thinks but (barely) manages not to sat. Instead, he offers a terse, falsely chipper, ]

Great.

[ Infection is precisely what he's worried about, as he starts rapidly searching through cabinets to gather a small armful of supplies. He gestures to the sink, as he does. ]

Wash them again, thoroughly. There's soap over there.

[serialmurderbot]

[SecUnit shoots a sidelong unimpressed look at Arcade, at the artificial quality to that cheer. Yeah, it can sense that sarcasm there.

It does, at least, go to clean off, even reluctantly taking off the jacket to leave the plain shirt underneath. The soap is probably going to sting like hell on those cuts, but it's thorough about scrubbing down the arm above the highest bite mark. It pauses only occasionally to track Arcade's progress through the room and consider which supplies he's gathering up.]

How long should it take to heal, when you've... stitched it.

[taediosum]

[ There are a handful of things gradually accumulating on the counter - disinfectant, of course, and gauze, some bandaging. He adds the pack over his shoulder, too, searching briefly inside to remove a small, rolled up cloth kit - thread and sanitized needles inside.

He doesn't look back at SecUnit as he sorts it all out, setting up. ]

Weeks? Optimistically, anyway. If there's any kind of infection, you could be looking at months of recovery time, with that many deep wounds.

[serialmurderbot]

Likelihood of finding medical facilities capable of regrowing the organic material currently sits at thirteen percent.

[It finds a spot next to the table, holding the arm in the air to avoid the surface of the table, waiting for Arcade to direct it once he's finished setting up his tools.]

My arm can function with partial removal of organic material, but it will lower performance reliability.

[taediosum]

[ Arcade scoffs, not bothering to direct, just firmly but carefully maneuvering SecUnit's arm in front of him as he takes a closer look at the freshly cleaned wounds. ]

Then we'd better hope patching it up will be enough, huh?

[ He lets it go to reach for the disinfectant, though he at least has the courtesy to warn before he gets started, ]

This is probably going to sting.